


memories turn into daydreams

by haloud



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, post-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29249481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud
Summary: On Alex's suggestion, Maria goes to ask Michael a favor. While she waits to him, she gets a chance to talk to someone else she's never really spoken to before, with whom she shares an almost-forgotten connection.
Relationships: Maria DeLuca & Alex Manes
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28
Collections: Maria DeLuca Healing Crystals Celebration





	memories turn into daydreams

“You’re no help,” Maria griped, tossing a jacket into Alex’s face. He laughed and batted it away, going back to flipping through her old CD holder.

“You didn’t ask me for _help,_ you asked if I wanted to come keep you company,” Alex teased. “I’m being _great_ company.”

“Ugh.”

“God, do you even _remember_ The Academy Is…? Blast from the past.”

“No. Help.”

Maria buried her head further in her closet as Alex snickered. Little shit.

Honestly, she should clean her closet out more often, but as busy as she was, it was hard to get around to it. But hey, she told herself, this just meant it was more of a haul when she actually made it to the consignment shop. Efficiency, or whatever.

Throwing a few more scarves from a former accessorizing phase onto the pile, Maria gasped at the sparkly purple plastic box she’d unearthed.

“What did you find?” Alex asked. “And is it more fossilized than this relic of your Avril Lavigne phase?”

“Oh my god, shut up, eventually I will get to my box of pictures of you dressed up as Brenden Urie for Halloween.”

“That’s playing dirty.”

“That’s what you _get._ ” She straightened up and brought the box over to the bed, flopping down next to Alex, who scooted over to make room for her, arm behind her shoulders.

“It’s my old rock collection,” Maria said, flipping open the lid. “Some from those touristy ‘gem mining’ places, some cool rocks I found exploring with Rosa…oh!” She gasped softly, picking up a gorgeous chunk of turquoise. “I remember this! Remember in middle school, I was all anti-jewelry for like five minutes? And Greg brought me this back from a trip to your mom’s.”

She rubbed her thumb over its smooth surface, a little smile on her face. Why had this collection ended up hidden away? Sure, she had prettier crystals, clearer ones, nicer cuts. But the memories were important too, the energy.

“I remember that, yeah,” Alex said, reaching over and picking up a citrine point, rolling it in his fingers. “If you wanted some of these turned into jewelry now, I bet Michael could help you. He’d probably be thrilled if you asked him.”

A little smile touched Maria’s lips. She took the citrine from Alex and held it up to the light. Memories. She did miss the weight of her mother’s necklace sometimes, even if it was her choice not to wear it anymore.

“You’re probably right. Did you ever see the bracelet he made me?”

“The pollen bead one?”

“Yeah.” She leaned over Alex to rummage through her bedside drawer, pulling out the little pouch she kept it in and pouring the bracelet into Alex’s hand. It was a simple thing—Michael wasn’t an expert, at all—but it was cute, threaded through with orange and yellow embroidery floss to match the yellow pollen in the glass beads. Made with thoughtful care to her personal style…made with love. Maria’s choice not to wear it was her own, but just looking at it made her a little emotional all the same.

Alex ran his thumb over the beads. “I had no idea he could do this, you know? He’s kind of amazing.”

“He kind of is.” Still smiling wistfully, she tucked the bracelet back away and pulled the box of rocks back into her lap. “I think I will ask him. It’s a good idea.”

..

Maria rumbled into the junkyard, already disappointed when she didn’t see Michael’s truck. But she had time to wait—it was a nice day, and even if Michael was underground, he’d probably get her text eventually.

Michael had told her once, because she asked him about it, that he didn’t mind if people came and went from his home, that he liked sharing space with people he loved. Still, it felt enough like an invasion of privacy that she settled into one of the chairs around his fire pit instead, her gem box in her lap, closing her eyes and basking in the sweet breeze tugging at her hair, ready to wait as long as it took.

“Can I help you?” A creaky old voice interrupted her thoughts, startling her enough that she almost dropped her box, catching it with one hand against her knee.

“Mr. Sanders! Hi!”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to spook you,” he said, gruffly, already turning away.

“You didn’t! It’s…it’s fine.”

She’d never really talked to Sanders. He tended to make himself scarce whenever someone came around to talk to Michael—he played it off like he was making the kid do all the work at the yard and that was all, but he did it to give Michael some privacy, to let him feel like this was his home, not just a place to park.

There was a lot to respect about Walt Sanders.

“DeLuca, right?” He asked, tugging on the fingers of his gloves, readjusting them over and over again.

“Mhm, that’s me. Maria DeLuca,” she said, crossing her legs and sitting up straight. “I’m just waiting for Michael.”

“Kid’ll be around. I had to send him off to pick up a part.”

A silence descended that would have been soul-crushingly awkward if Maria couldn’t sense so keenly that he had something more that he wanted to say.

“You’re Miss Harris’s granddaughter,” he said, eventually.

Maria’s eyebrows flew up. “That’s my Grandma Patty, yeah! Did you know her?”

Right, Sanders was…

Michael had told her a little bit, the things that Sanders had told him and Isobel about Louise and about Roy Bronson. But Maria, until now, hadn’t processed, exactly, what that might mean, what he might be able to tell her about her own family.

The surprise came tinged with anger, too. Sanders knew things. _Had_ known things. Where was he when her grandmother was being taken in by Caulfield? Where was he when he could have told her about where she came from? It wasn’t fair. Maria knew it wasn’t fair. Sanders was only a child when Roy and Louise died, a child who blamed himself, from what Michael said. But life hadn’t been fair for Patricia Harris, either.

“No, no, I didn’t know her well. Just made sure to always give her fair service if she had an auto problem. I…didn’t know how to talk to her. But there are things I wish we’d spoken about, is all.”

“Mr. Sanders…”

He waved her off and turned away, all anchored and rusted with regret and embarrassment for having said anything at all.

“Just another old man with regrets and too much time to jaw on about ‘em,” he said. “You just remind me a lot of her. Got the same aura about you.” He shook his head jerkily again, his own aura going grayer, gloomier. “I’ll give the kid a call, tell him to hurry his ass up.”

“It’s no trouble,” Maria said. “Mr. Sanders. You know…”

He paused to listen.

“Those things you wanted to say to my grandmother, you can talk to me about them. Any memories you want to pass on. I’d like to hear them.”

Sanders turned his head so he could look at her, uncertainty on his face. Finally, he said, “That’s mighty kind of you, Miss DeLuca. Your great-grandfather was the kindest man this world ever knew, and I can tell you that much.”

As Maria might have expected, he clammed up then, just saying “I’ve got to get back to work,” and loping back across the junkyard to the beater he’d been rummaging around in when Maria drove up.

The breeze picked back up again, and Maria turned her face in its direction, fingering the clasp on the box in her lap. Her phone buzzed—a text from Michael to say he was on his way, so she unlocked it and responded:

_Great! See you soon.  
We should do breakfast one of these days. Omelets?_

And Michael responded:

_Sure, if you want. Sounds like a plan._

And a plan it was. Maria stood up to go clue Sanders into it, too—maybe he’d like to show the both of them what the master could do, when it came to breakfast cooking.

After all, they still had time. Memories didn’t just have to be locked away, catalogued, held on to…they could be made, too.


End file.
